A hundred and thirty four. As in 134. Not submissions – those numbered close to a thousand (951 when we stopped the count, with more still coming) – but names. It quickly became obvious that the Monitor had some serious whittling down to do if this Media Friends List was going to work at all.
First, a big thank you to all who sent in nominations for the list. Next, an apology to those whose nominations fell victim to the whittling process. Here’s how that process worked: Any nominee who was not a U.S.-based full-time journalist or media personality was disqualified. Simple and arbitrary, but it got the job done.
Uri Dan, for example, the veteran Israeli journalist who serves as the New York Post’s Israel correspondent and whose op-ed pieces occasionally appear in The Jewish Press, received a number of votes but was not eligible for the List. The same held true for anyone nominated from the ranks of academics, retired military personnel and think-tank staffers who write extensively on the Middle East from a pro-Israel perspective (Fouad Ajami, Frank Gaffney, Victor Davis Hanson, Daniel Pipes, Ralph Peters, etc.).
More than a few readers included the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, New York Post and New York Sun among their nominations, but the List is about individuals, not publications. And while the Monitor encouraged readers to send along names of pro-Israel media personalities in their areas who may lack national name recognition, very few actually did.
With all that out of the way, here are the top 25 vote-getters, in alphabetical order. Next week we’ll list the top ten by number of votes received and feature some comments from readers.
Zev Chafets – columnist, New York Daily News
Mona Charen – syndicated columnist
Linda Chavez – syndicated columnist
Joseph Farah – editor and CEO, WorldNetDaily.com
Eric Fettmann – associate editorial page editor, New York Post
Jonah Goldberg – editor, National Review Online
Bob Grant – syndicated radio host
Sean Hannity – syndicated radio host; co-host “Hannity and Colmes Show” (Fox News).
Jeff Jacoby – columnist, Boston Globe
Michael Kelly – columnist, Washington Post; editor, The Atlantic Monthly
Alan Keyes – commentator and perennial Republican presidential aspirant
Charles Krauthammer – columnist, Washington Post
G. Gordon Liddy – syndicated radio host
Rush Limbaugh – syndicated radio host
Bill Maher – host of ABC- TV’s recently canceled “Politically Incorrect”
Steve Malzberg – New York radio host
John Podhoretz – columnist, New York Post
Dennis Prager – syndicated radio host
A.M. Rosenthal – columnist, New York Daily News
William Safire – columnist, New York Times
Michael Savage – syndicated radio host
Curtis Sliwa – New York radio host
Cal Thomas – syndicated columnist
Jonathan Tobin – executive editor, Philadelphia Jewish Exponent
George Will – columnist, Washington Post, Newsweek; contributor, ABC News
(Continued Next Week)
Jason Maoz can be reached at [email protected]